Wolfenstein SS
, in Doom II: Hell on Earth. If you look in between its legs, you will notice magenta pixels instead of the expected background.]] The Wolfenstein SS (also referred to as the SS Nazi in DeHackEd) is a Nazi Schutzstaffel officer in blue uniform. Originally from Wolfenstein 3-D, the SS Nazis appear as an Easter Egg in the secret levels of Doom II, which are re-creations of levels from Wolfenstein 3-D. The SS officer appears as a blonde, blue-eyed, square-jawed man wearing coveralls and a sidecap, and carries a submachine gun. When wounded, the Wolfenstein SS sounds like the former humans when they take damage. The SS Nazi inhabits only two of the Doom II maps released by id Software, the Doom II levels MAP31 and MAP32. Furthermore, SS Nazi soldiers are absent from MAP32: Grosse on the "I'm too young to die" and "Hey, not too rough" skill settings. The SS officer is not mentioned in the Doom II instruction manual, presumably because his presence is an easter egg. The Wolfenstein SS is also present in the Final Doom IWADs, but is unused in any stock maps. Combat characteristics The SS Nazi attacks by firing two bullets at a time, which are slightly less powerful than the player's bullet; like the heavy weapon dude, he fires repeatedly as long as its target is in sight. When killed, the Nazi drops a clip containing five bullets (or 10 on the "I'm too young to die" and "Nightmare!" skill settings). Wolfenstein 3-D did not feature multiplayer or monster infighting, hence, all its bad guys only had front-facing graphics for attacking. Id Software's artists did not bother to make new attacking graphics for the other angles when they converted the SS Nazi's graphics to Doom II, therefore, the SS Nazi always appears to face the player when firing, no matter where its actual target is, which can be confusing because the Nazis are just as likely to engage in infighting and killing each other as the former humans are. An arch-vile can also resurrect corpses of SS Nazis, but these monsters do not appear together in a level. If they did appear together, this feature would be shown. Tactical analysis In Wolfenstein 3-D, the SS Nazi was a feared marksman whose high rate of fire, accuracy, and large hit point total forced the player to take care when fighting them. In Doom II, the SS Nazi is not as dangerous, becoming a somewhat weaker counterpart of the heavy weapon dude, with less hit points and a slower rate of fire. Although a single SS Nazi at close range can inflict significant damage (its rate of fire is about half that of a heavy weapon dude), his main distinguishing feature is now its inaccurate aim, which sometimes allows a skilled player to clear a good part of a large room without even pulling the trigger, due to infighting, especially considering the way the monster is grouped in the secret levels of Doom II. If the chaingun is used against a group of SS Nazis on the "Hey, not too rough", "Hurt me plenty", or "Ultra-Violence" skill levels, the player should watch his character's bullet stock carefully, since one is usually expending at least five bullets for every five-bullet clip recovered. The plasma gun dispatches Nazis fairly rapidly, while a single shotgun blast is often fatal. However, a chainsaw can be reasonably useful against the monster, but only at corners or narrow rooms and dead ends, because of its hitscan attack. Inspiration and development Although the Doom engine considers SS Nazis to be the same height as former humans and the player, it appears shorter on the screen because its sprites are unchanged in size from the originals from Wolfenstein 3D. The monster's alert and death sounds are spoken in German; they are "Schutzstaffel!" (Identifying himself as a member of the SS; literally, "protection squad") and "Mein leben!" (a popular line from Wolfenstein 3-D; means "My life!"), respectively. When killed, a Wolfenstein SS simply falls on his back as his blood pours out from his chest and stains red his blue clothing. The Schutzstaffel (commonly known as the SS) was a notorious paramilitary organization active during Hitler's tenure in Germany, responsible for a large part of the war crimes committed by the regime. Notes * One of the aiming graphics of the Wolfenstein SS's sprite, SSWVF0, has magenta pixels between the legs, due to a palette conversion error. In Wolfenstein 3-D, this magenta color is not used in the game and is reserved as a "null" color to represent transparent pixels in graphic editing tools, so the artists must have missed the section between the legs when they converted the image to the Doom picture format, which does not have a transparent color. * The SS Nazi does not appear in the German release of Doom II, due to the absence of the two secret levels. These levels were removed due to Germany's long-standing ban on Nazi symbolism, which extends to computer games and other entertainment media. German laws ban usage of Nazi symbols in all forms of media unless the usage is justified (for example, educational materials relating to the Nazis). Wolfenstein 3-D itself was never offered for sale in Germany at all due to these laws. * The original SS Nazi from Wolfenstein was extremely accurate and able to cut the player down in a matter of seconds. The rate of fire for the Doom II version has been greatly decreased, rendering them less lethal than Doom II's own heavy weapons dudes. While this makes them less threatening by themselves, their main threat comes from their large numbers and phalanx-style positions. * The SS Nazi seems to be holding a popular Nazi gun known as the Maschinenpistole 40, better known in pop culture as the MP-40. Although the model is holding this weapon, it only fires one pistol shot at a time, and only drops a clip for the pistol. * The SS's original sprite set from Wolfenstein 3-D only includes animation frames for firing his weapon in the direction of the player, since Wolfenstein 3-D did not feature monster infighting or multiplayer, and thus did not require artwork depicting the enemy firing in any direction other than directly at the player--and, no new frames were created for Doom II for this purpose. Therefore, when the SS engages in monster infighting, it always appears to be facing (and firing at) the player, no matter where its actual target is. * Although the SS in Doom II did not receive any new frames of animation for his attack, he was given a gib animation like the former humans and imps. * In a ZDoom-based source port, if a player "Doomguy" is killed by an SS Nazi (monster is credited with delivering the blow that reduces player's health to 0%), an obituary message is displayed at the top of the screen: "Doomguy met a Nazi." Data |- | |} |valign=top| |} |valign=top| |} |} #This table assumes that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, blood splats, and bullet dispersal are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: counterattacks and AI pathfinding must be handled, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Any resulting errors are probably toward the single-shot average, as they introduce noise into the correlation between the indices of "consecutive" calls. #The target must be close enough to compensate for the monster's inaccurate aim. #Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map. Appearance statistics The IWADs contain the following numbers of Wolfenstein SS officers: Wolfenstein Wiki article on SS Sources * Doom II FAQ/Walkthrough by Tim Brastow, at IGN.com Category:Easter eggs Category:Crossovers